


just beneath the skin

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/M, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 01:01:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12570168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: Simmons is back home on Earth, but she still needs to be rescued.





	just beneath the skin

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Skillet's "Monster"

“Long time no see,” Grant says.

Fitz flinches at the voice so close behind him, nearly sloshing his alcohol out of his glass. When Grant heard someone was looking to hire him for a job—someone who claimed to be an old friend _—_ he’s gotta admit Fitz was low on his list of possibilities.

“Ward,” he sighs. It almost sounds like relief.

Grant struggles to hold back the sharp edge of his smile. It’s one thing to put a little fear in his _old friend’s_ heart, but with the full moon only hours behind him he knows he’s likely to drift from dangerous predator into _hungry_ dangerous predator. “I can’t say I’m surprised to see you,” he says, dropping into the chair across from him. “From what I hear you’ve spent the past few months globe-hopping, leaving SHIELD protection back at the Playground. Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t come my way sooner.” 

“Yes,” Fitz says, a slight stutter in his voice. “I was looking for Simmons.”

Oh, this is gonna be good. Grant leans back in his chair. “Simmons? Something happen to her?” His tone is all innocence and it gets him just the reaction he hoped for. Fitz goes pale, his face tightens; if he weren’t so obviously outmatched, Grant thinks he’d probably have jumped on him by now. That’d be something to see.

Fitz breathes deep, shuts it down, buries whatever he’s feeling. “Eight months ago she came in contact with an 084. She spent the next seven months on an alien planet.”

Grant keeps perfectly still. That is … not what he was expecting Fitz to say, not after the last time he saw Simmons.

Fitz’s shoulders slump. “We were hoping the full moon would fix it, but-”

“Fix what?”

Fitz’s eyes go wide, there’s a little of that prey terror on his face. Grant realizes belatedly that he’s leaning over the table in a decidedly murdery way.

“Fix _what_ , Fitz?” he demands.

That accusation is back, so intense Fitz practically spits at him. “What _you_ did. Or do you expect me to believe it was some other werewolf who turned her and just left her?” The last word ends in a whine when Grant twists a hand in his hair, forcing his head back to a painful angle.

He wouldn’t-

He didn’t-

Okay maybe he _did_ just leave Simmons after he turned her. But his options were pretty limited and it wasn’t like she wanted his help anyway. If he’d known she was gonna end up on her own…

He remembers what it was like all alone in the woods, struggling to survive and to control his new instincts. At least he had Buddy. He doubts any of the alien wildlife was too happy to have a brand new apex predator running around.

“Back up,” he says, watching as Fitz’s eyes water in pain. The bartender—the only other person in this dump at ten in the morning—is watching with mild curiosity but makes no move to intervene. Grant ignores him. “You thought the full moon would fix something? Was she hurt?”

The transformation is a _bitch_ —no pun intended—but it has its perks. More than once Grant’s been shot and made it through because the rapidly shifting flesh healed the wound right up. It can also do the reverse though. Get a wound in the wrong place, the transformation will tear it deeper, leave you open and bleeding out.

Fitz grimaces. “From what we were able to learn prior to finding her, the planet’s rotation keeps it in a constant state of twilight and most of its visible light is reflected off its two moons.”

There’s a slight emphasis on _two moons_ , enough that the last of the adrenaline lingering from his transformation this morning slips off, leaving Grant cold. His hand drops, but Fitz barely moves.

“She was a wolf when we found her. She still hasn’t turned back.”

Fucking hell.

“So what is this?” Grant asks. He’s gotta talk, gotta think, because those are things humans do, things far removed from his current base desire to slough off this human skin and go hunting for Simmons. “You looking for revenge, Fitz? Or were you hoping that legend about killing your maker curing you was true? Because guess what? It’s not.”

For a few seconds—long enough for that animal urge to rise back up—Fitz just stares. Finally he says, “I’m here to ask for your help.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

She tried to kill him. Simmons. She tried to use one of those splinter bombs on him—a _Hydra_ weapon, what would Coulson say—and dared him to “get it over with” and put a bullet in her brain.

He doesn’t know if he would’ve. He knows he didn’t want to, but he also underestimated her once and he’s not in the habit of doing that twice. So there’s no telling what would’ve happened if reinforcements hadn’t arrived just then.

He pushed her down, out of the way, while the room was swarmed by idiot Hydra agents. And her accusation was still echoing in his head, the way she spat _monster_ at him like it was the worst insult she could think of, so he figured why not?

He tore through the agents like tissue paper, senses tuned only to their cries of pain. That’s how he heard hers. That oh-so-feminine gasp followed by a painfully sharp yell. “Freeze or the woman dies!”

Thing is, a wolf isn’t a man. Grant’s always in there but little things like strategy and sense take a backseat to will and instinct. So he did freeze, but only for the quarter-second it took to see the man, the gun, Simmons’ face pale as the moon. Then he lunged.

His nostrils filled with the sharp tang of human fear and at the last moment he altered the angle of his bite, avoiding the artery and tearing at solid flesh. The man’s death was slow and lingering, no less than he deserved for the crime of touching what was Grant’s.

Grant didn’t even know until after—after the soldiers were all dead, after he’d transformed back into a man (or as much of one as he ever was), after he’d begun searching the dead for clothes that might fit him—what he’d done.

She gasped again in pain, drawing his attention back to her, and he saw the blood. At first he thought it might be the last man’s doing, that he’d let him off too easy, but then he saw the way her flesh was torn. Evenly, only could’ve been done by a claw.

He’d never turned anyone before. It had been a gift, a sign of John’s faith in him, it didn’t seem like the sort of thing he should be handing out like party favors. But with Simmons’ hate-filled words echoing in his head again, he chuckled.

Her head snapped up, half-rage, half-hope. She wanted him to tell her it wasn’t enough.

He smiled, let the hungry edge sharpen it. “Guess I’m not the only monster anymore.”

That was the last time he saw her, just over eight months ago.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Well, Fitz wasn’t lying.

They’ve got Simmons in his old room. Which isn’t actually something he realizes right away. Even with all the months he spent in there, she’s managed to tear it up bad enough it’s near unrecognizable. The foam they covered the walls in after his last suicide attempt is everywhere. Some of it still clings to the walls, but most of it is on the floor like an uneven snowfall. She’s gathered a good portion of it up, used it along with the remains of the mattress to make a nest for herself in the back.

She’s curled up there when they come down—him and Fitz and a very unhappy Coulson. It’s pretty clear nobody was on board when Fitz decided to come to him for help, but equally clear none of them knew what to do without him.

“So what do you think?” Coulson asks impatiently. Simmons was already alert, her ears up and listening while they walked down the stairs, but at the sound of Coulson’s voice she rises.

Her head is down, her eyes on the ground instead of on them, but that’s not a weakness. She’s all honed muscle, every inch of her painted with a lethal grace he can’t help but admire.

What does he think? He thinks she’s beautiful.

Not that there aren’t blemishes. She’s damn thin and her fur is lighter than her hair was, giving him a clean view of the angry black spot on her shoulder. “What’s that?”

She leaps, claws slashing at the barrier.

“It’s all right,” Fitz says, approaching only after leaping back. “It’s okay, Jemma, he’s not going to hurt you.”

Simmons paces, just shy of the line on the ground. Fitz seems to think he’s actually getting through to her, but really it’s just that there’s no way for _her_ to get through to _them_. Even as a wolf, she’s smart. She won’t keep attacking when her enemy is out of reach.

“We think the barrier messes with her vision,” Fitz says. “She doesn’t seem to be able to see through it.” Yeah, Grant remembers how it lit up like a Christmas tree whenever he’d turn down here.

He shoots Coulson a look, silently asking for an answer to his question.

“She tested it,” Coulson says. “When she couldn’t find a weak spot, she tried to make one.”

Grant winces in sympathy. He tested the barrier himself a few times; it packs quite a punch.

Fitz twists in his crouch. “Can you help her?”

Grant joins him, watches Simmons pass by a couple times. “We’ll find out,” he says—and grins at the way her hackles rise at the sound of his voice.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There’s a lot of talking after that. For some reason Fitz thinks Grant needs to hear everything that didn’t work and then he’s gotta tell him all about whatever shit planet Simmons was on—a desert, so he’s guessing that’s why her coat faded, for camouflage—and _then_ he’s gotta give him suggestions. Like he brought Grant here to follow orders or something.

In the end, once he’s left alone with her and he can feel the waning moon rise, he just drops the damn barrier.

“Come on, beautiful,” he calls. She crawls out of her nest, tips her head to one side. Things sound different without the barrier between them, she’s trying to figure out what it means. “Come on. Let me have it. One monster to another.”

She lifts her head, rubs at her eyes with one great paw, fixes her focus on him.

She practically flies across the room, slamming into him so hard the air rushes out of him and he feels one of his ribs crack. He grins while he holds her jaws at bay. Almost too easy.

There’s a reason wolves change with the moon. It’s hard. _Real_ hard. Every inch of your body twists and breaks and shifts until it’s all something else and it’s just a hell of a lot easier to do it if there’s something pulling the change out of you. But Grant’s never been one to shy away from a thing just because it hurt. He learned, during those long months in the woods with Buddy, what it takes to trick his body into the change.

Pain’s good.

A broken bone is better.

He rolls, kicking her off so he can have a little room while his body betrays him. His legs are already shifting, giving him greater strength so she goes slamming into the wall, even catches that burned shoulder of hers and whimpers in pain.

“Yeah, I know,” he says while he’s still got a mouth that can say it. And she must really hate his voice because she’s on him again, turning a yell of surprise into a howl of pain when her jaw closes around _his_ shoulder. Bitch.

He fights her with half-human arms, slashing at her exposed belly while his claws come in. She drops down, snaps at him with her teeth, dances just out of his reach, and uses the chair for cover. Just when he thinks he’s got a half-second to breathe, to finish the transformation, she swats the damn chair at his legs, knocking him back onto concrete she’s scratched ruts in with her claws. He lets out a huff like a laugh. Her most dangerous weapon’s still her brain.

Not that that means it’s really a  _human_ brain. There’s humanity in there but mostly it’s the monster.

There’s not much left of Grant-the-man working either right now. He’s running on instinct—the struggle, the hunger, and the memory of things he thought he’d lost forever.

She comes at him again, but this time he’s ready. He crushes the flimsy metal chair beneath one paw and lets out a sound that’s half howl, half human roar. The little bitch only quails for a heartbeat, her claws skittering on the broken ground, before she goes for his throat.

He catches her with his forepaws, uses her momentum to roll them both over and over until he comes out on top. Paws pressed to her chest. Another howl-roar. _Submit!_

She struggles, snaps with her jaws, kicks with her hindlegs.

Stupid female.

He sees the injury, remembers how she cried. He needs only to press down and she’ll give in.

But no. _No_.

Other thoughts dig in. Too much thought for things that aren’t the fight. Too many _words_. Stupid, human things. There’s no need for them here.

But they won’t shut up. They keep talking, keep saying _no no no no_ like he’s a dog when he’s a _wolf_.

He snaps at the air but that only helps him remember, helps him see.

_“_ _Get it over with, you_ _**monster** _ _.”_

Fear. Her fear. Thick and human.

Then again later. Fear of another. Fear of someone who would _take her away_.

And he hurt her.

And he left her.

He remembers being hurt, being left. But the alpha left him the dog, left him instructions. The alpha came back.

The alpha’s gone.

He’s the alpha now.

Beneath him, she can’t move. She kicks and whines, struggles to be free. Her fear isn’t human anymore, but he knows the smell of it still.

He moves slowly to stop her biting, licks her shoulder until she stills, then turns her, licks the other side clean. He shouldn’t have left her.

He presses his head to her neck. He’s come back.

She whines, moves against him, rolls, gives him her belly. Submission.

She was always the smartest female.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning, Grant is human and curled around an equally human body in the nest she built. He smirks for the cameras he knows are watching while inside he feels a little lingering tension ease. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure that she’d turn if she had a packmate to do it with, but hell if he’s gonna let SHIELD know that.

Her shoulder’s still raw. It sat too long before the transformation, it’s sure to scar. He licks it once before kissing his way up her neck to her ear.

She hums, rolls beneath him. She smiles blearily, her eyes still clouded by sleep. Or maybe by nearly a year as a wolf.

Probably that second one because when he tips his head into her lifted hand she stills, her focus shifting to it instead of him. He feels her pulse jump and then he’s gotta move because she’s sitting up, looking at all of her.

And, since she is, he does too. As a wolf she was beautiful, but as a woman, she’s gorgeous. He lets his hand trail from her breast down to her thigh.

She doesn’t complain. She only looks and touches for herself and then turns to him. Her throat works. She whines.

Fear spikes at the base of his skull. Not that this wouldn’t still be a victory, but if she lost her voice to the wolf… He can’t imagine her without it.

He presses his thumb along the soft part of her throat. “Come on, beautiful,” he urges. “You can do it.”

She gasps in breaths, whines again. She touches his shoulder, the one she bit into last night. There’s a little bruising, but nothing to her burn. “Mon-sters.”

He sighs and draws her to him so he can rest his forehead against hers. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re my monster. And I’m yours. That all right?”

If it’s not … he isn’t sure. He knows it’s been a long time since John, since he had any pack at all to call his own. But while he knows the ache of missing it, she’s never known it at all. There’s no telling whether she’ll want it. Especially with him.

She nods slowly, humming again.

He kisses her, relief making him giddy. Then he presses her down into the soft foam because his skin’s always brand new and sensitive after the transformation and he’s betting hers is too.

Considering the sounds she makes—no words but they have time to work on that—he’s pretty sure he was right.

 


End file.
